My partner and I stayed at the Commercial Hotel for one night because Lonely Planet had it in their Canada book, and it didn't sound too bad.

Like the other person who has reviewed here, we didn't know it was cash only, so we had to go find an ATM, which he said was down the road, but turned out there was one right across the street we could have used.

We went up to the room and it was DISGUSTING. The bathroom was dirty - hairs everywhere, grime, cigarette ash on the floor - the bed had been made but the sheets smelled and they were full of holes. The bed was broken, too. The room had not been vacuumed. This may sound childish, but I was afraid to take my shoes off.

For $70, I would have expected more - at the very least, a clean room.

If this is meant to be a good value hotel room in Edmonton, I'd shell out the extra $20-$30 and stay at a chain motel.

We read the reviews online and they seemed ok and it was cheap so we thought we would stay there. We were arriving late at night from a flight so thought a hotel would be better than a hostel. The man who greeted us didn't have a clue what he was doing. It was cash only, which we had not been told. We were then pointed in the direction of our room. On opening the door the overwhelming smell of smoke came out, it stank. The sheets smelt of it and everything in the room. We pulled back the bed sheets and there were hairs, there were also hairs in the bath.. We would certainly not recommend this place.

The Commercial Hotel is a very old hotel. If you want a bathroom in your room you must make sure you request it. Many of the rooms use bathrooms down the hallway. The rooms are small and definitely not fancy but ours was clean. If you want to stay in the Whyte Avenue area and not spend a lot of money, the Commercial Hotel is a good possibility. It is not overly noisy, at least during midweek. It is not on computer and is rather old-fashioned in that you are asked to leave your room key at the desk when you are absent from the hotel. If you are there on a Saturday afternoon and are a blues jazz fan, the Commerical has a rather good jam session in the bar. The bar is an old time bar and is very smoky though that should change when Edmonton goes smoke free next year. The hotel is handy to a variety of interesting and somewhat different shops along Whyte Avenue and environs. It does not have a restaurant but is near a few good restaurants within a couple of blocks. If you want to go somewhat further afield buses run up and down the Avenue fairly regularly and are much easier than trying to find parking for a car. $2 will take you on a one and a half hour round trip if you request a transfer. Front desk staff was friendly. A local cab driver told us that if you want a cab from there at least at night that you should request it to come to some other facility that is close as it has apparently a reputation for people who have had too much to drink calling for cabs and at least some of the local cabbies try to avoid fares there. The Commercial is good value for the price if you are mainly concerned with clean sheets and a bed for the night.